RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, another death in a spiral of violence that has rocked the region.
The Health Ministry said Saleh Sabra, 22, had died after being shot in the workplace in the volatile West Bank city of Nablus, a frequent scene of Israeli operations. The Israeli army did not immediately comment, although Israeli media reported that soldiers preparing to demolish the home of a Palestinian attacker had been shot and returned fire.
The event followed more than a year of ongoing violence in the West Bank, where the Israeli army makes raids almost every night in response to Palestinian attacks on Israelis. It also followed a five-day outbreak of fighting between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip.
More than 250 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began raids on the West Bank in March last year, 112 of them so far this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the dead were militants, but youth protesting the incursions and people not taking part in the confrontations have also been killed. During fighting in Gaza last week, 33 Palestinians were killed, 18 of them identified as militants.
Since the violence escalated last year, 51 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Tensions were expected to rise again this week, when nationalist Israelis held an annual march through a majority-Palestinian neighborhood in Old Jerusalem. The march, which commemorates Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, is often eventful, with participants chanting anti-Arab insults. The Palestinians view the parade as a provocation.
In 2021, after weeks of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the authorities changed the route of the march at the last minute to avoid the Palestinian area. But it was too late, and Hamas militants in Gaza fired a round of rockets into Jerusalem as the procession was underway. That triggered 11 days of heavy fighting in Gaza.
